LibGuides: Controversial Topics: Getting Started: Topic Overviews

Topics: Getting Started

Need a topic?

Browse for overviews in subject areas you are interested in and do some background reading.
Once you choose a topic, narrow it down to a question with at least two defensible sides.
Find credible resources for both sides of the issue; not just ones that you agree with.

Overviews in Databases

These databases are particularly good for browsing for topic ideas or finding overviews of topics. Off-campus availability is limited to current students, faculty, and staff.

Issues & Controversies This link opens in a new window
A great starting place with articles that explore different sides of current issues. Includes ideas for research topics. Search by keyword or browse the "Issues in the Headlines" or "Issues: Pro and Con" sections. Special features include sections on newspaper editorials and editorial cartoons, and "Find a Research Topic."
Issues and Controversies covers more than 800 topics in business, politics, government, education, and popular culture. It is updated weekly, with links to a 12-year back-file.

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System Requirements
Opposing Viewpoints (Gale In Context) This link opens in a new window
This database is built from opinion essays published in the Opposing Viewpoints series of books, but also includes articles and other sources of information on controversial issues.
Draws on the social issues series published by Greenhaven Press, as well as core reference content from other Gale and Macmillan Reference USA sources to provide a complete one-stop source for information on social issues. Access viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, links to Web sites, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles.

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Access World News This link opens in a new window
Scroll down to the Suggested Topics to browse. Social Issues is one of the categories.
Five full text databases are included. NewsBank Academic Library Collection provides contemporary articles from national and international newspapers, wire services and magazines from 1986 forward. Newsbank Retrospective covers 1970-1991 and focuses on contemporary American History. MOREnet offered Full-Text Newspapers includes local, regional and national newspapers in one searchable database. The Kansas City Star covers 1991-Current and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch covers 1988-Current.

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Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Online reference library that provides access to a growing selection of reference books. Includes encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, books of quotations, and a range of subject-specific titles from art to accountancy and literature to law. Useful for selecting topics and finding background information on a topic as a starting point for research.
Online reference library that provides access to a growing selection of reference books. Includes encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, books of quotations, and a range of subject-specific titles from art to accountancy and literature to law. Credo Reference generates a network of cross-references that provide an easy-to-follow trail to related information contained anywhere within the library.

Credo Reference Subject Guides
CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
CQ Researcher contains in-depth reports, about 30 pages each, on current topics. A new report is published each week. Each report includes a Pro/Con page giving expert opinions on both sides of a controversial question within the topic. A history of the topic, statistics, and sources for further information are also given. Search or browse by topic. Also in print. Global Researcher, covering international topics, has recently been added to the database.
Explores a single "hot" issue in the news in depth each week. Topics range from social and teen issues to environment, health, education and science and technology. There are 44 reports produced each year including four expanded reports.

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Global Issues (Gale In Context) This link opens in a new window
International viewpoints on global issues, topics, and current events.
Global Issues In Context offers international viewpoints on global issues, topics, and current events. It includes hundreds of continuously updated issue and country portals that bring together selected sources for analysis of these issues. Each portal includes podcasts, video, and interactive graphs. Use Browse Issues and Topics, Country Finder, Basic Search or Advanced Search.

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Overviews in Reference Books

Encyclopedias that specialize on specific subjects (such as science, communications, or law, for example) will go into more depth than general encyclopedias. These are good resources to find history, overviews, and basic facts, and for getting ideas on how to narrow a broad topic. Look for questions or controversies within the topic. Encyclopedias of social issues and those covering ethics are particularly useful for background information on controversial topics. Ask a librarian for help identifying specialized encyclopedias on your topic.

Culture Wars in America: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, And Voices
Publication Date: 2013
From the Credo Reference database
Global Social Issues: An Encyclopedia
From the Credo Reference database
Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics
Call Number: 170.3 E565 2012 (vols. 1-4) FP-Reference. An earlier edition is in reference at Florissant Valley and Meramec: 170.3 E565 (3 vols.)
What makes a topic controversial? Often it includes an ethical or moral question. Ethics encyclopedias include overviews and discussions of complex ethical questions relating to many controversial topics.

Book series

Book series on controversial topics
Each book in these series covers a single broad subject, giving the arguments on different sides of the issues. You can also find some statistics and historical background. You might want to use just a single chapter from one of these books. Opposing Viewpoints is also available as a database. To find a list of books in each series, search for the series by title in the STLCC Library Catalog.

Contemporary World Issues
Often includes the subtitle: "A Reference Handbook"
Current Controversies
From Greenhaven Press
Information Plus
Opposing Viewpoints
Viewpoint essays from these books are also available in the Opposing Viewpoints (Gale in Context) database.
Reference Shelf
Some of these books are also available as ebooks through Salem Press.

Salem Press This link opens in a new window
Salem Press titles in literature, history, science, and health.
Salem Press titles in literature, history, science, and health. Includes Magill's Literary Annual 1977-current, Masterplots, Magill's Medical Guide, the Great Events and Great Lives from History reference series, and several science encyclopedias.

PDF Guide

Reference Books Online

Credo and Gale are only available online to current students, faculty and staff.

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Credo Reference is a database of reference books, including many specialized encyclopedias and dictionaries. It's a great resource for authoritative information on many subjects.
Online reference library that provides access to a growing selection of reference books. Includes encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, books of quotations, and a range of subject-specific titles from art to accountancy and literature to law. Credo Reference generates a network of cross-references that provide an easy-to-follow trail to related information contained anywhere within the library.

Credo Reference Subject Guides
Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Gale VRL is a small collection of specialized encyclopedias and other reference books, including Encyclopedia of Bioethics.
Gale eBooks is a database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.

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Wikipedia
Wikipedia is the largest, most convenient online encyclopedia, but BE CAREFUL! Remember that anyone can add information to Wikipedia, regardless of their qualifications, and that information in Wikipedia often changes.

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